


My Fault

by inspiration_assaulted



Series: The Music of 221B [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 23:04:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inspiration_assaulted/pseuds/inspiration_assaulted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the song "Little Lion Man" by Mumford and Sons</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Fault

WEEP LITTLE LION MAN  
YOU’RE NOT AS BRAVE AS YOU WERE AT THE START

John’s hands shook. Sherlock cursed his keen mind and his observant eyes. John never wanted anyone to see his fear. Sherlock had seen is anger many times, several times on this very case, but never his fear. The good doctor always left, went for a walk, to “get some air.” Sherlock never saw him afraid. Perhaps the detective had even overestimated John’s courage and fearlessness.

But none of that changed the fact that John’s hands shook.

“Gottle o’gear, gottle o’gear, gottle o’gear.” His voice broke on the last. Sherlock cursed himself for noticing, cursed the red dot over his heart, cursed the bomb that kept him from folding John in his long arms. Cursed Moriarty for putting them here, for breaking all his illusions of John.

Don’t turn people into heroes, he had told his friend. He should have followed his own advice. Don’t make people into heroes, Sherlock. You idiot.

BUT IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT BUT MINE  
AND IT WAS YOUR HEART ON THE LINE  
I REALLY FUCKED IT UP THIS TIME  
DIDN’T I, MY DEAR?

Sherlock knew it was his fault John was here. It was his own fault he had never been able to leave well enough alone. It was his restless drive that had caught Moriarty’s attention.

It was the way that he drove everyone else away that made John stand out. It was the way John had stayed that had made him special. It was Sherlock’s fault that John, good, sweet, tender John, had ended up here in the empty pool with instant death weighing heavy on his frame and the red mark of fate over his heart.

“I can stop John Watson, too. Stop his heart.” “I will burn the heart out of you.”

TREMBLE FOR YOURSELF, MY MAN  
YOU KNOW THAT YOU HAVE SEEN THIS ALL BEFORE

Sherlock could see it the instant the words registered. John’s face snapped closed. Gone was the concerned, if confused, expression. Gone was the tenderness in his eyes. Gone was the warm body that leaned towards him, hoping to draw out his fear, to fix him up like any good doctor. All because of four little words.

“I don’t have friends.”

Why, oh why, did he have to spit out that last word, like it tasted bad on his tongue? Like it hurt his throat, like it offended the very core of who he was?

His words, stupid, stupid words, hung on the air for an instant before John could take them him. Then his face turned distant and icy. Sherlock could see the deep pain in his eyes before they closed, the pain of confirmation of all the awful things people had told the doctor about the detective. All the things John had dismissed and disregarded, nearly forgotten.

Those four rash, stupid words, spoken out of the reflexive contempt he hid his fear behind, had wounded John to the core.

BUT IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT BUT MINE  
AND IT WAS YOUR HEART ON THE LINE  
I REALLY FUCKED IT UP THIS TIME  
DIDN’T I, MY DEAR?

How could he explain it? Sherlock Holmes did not have friends, that was the truth. He had family, like Mycroft. He had people who were family in all but blood. He had a kind mother in Mrs. Hudson, another older brother in Lestrade, and younger sister in Molly, even annoying cousins in Donovan and Anderson. They weren’t friends, they were something _other_.

Even John was not a friend. He wasn’t exactly family either. John was something different, something _more_. He was like another part of Sherlock himself.

Before John Watson had limped into his life, all soft jumpers and a steel core, Sherlock had wandered through the world half-there. There were so many things he couldn’t really appreciate, things he couldn’t understand. It was as though there was a part of him missing.

That part was John. John was everything he was not. Kind, understanding, moral, brave, loyal to a fault. He _needed_ John in a way he had never needed anything or anyone before or since.

And four stupid words had ripped it away. Sherlock had just succeeded in driving away John just like he had driven away so many before him.

BUT IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT BUT MINE  
AND IT WAS YOUR HEART ON THE LINE

This was his fault. Not Moriarty’s, not Mycroft’s, his. Sherlock, as much as he didn’t want to, as much he wanted to shy away from it all, knew that, and he knew he had to stand here and listen to all the pain that was his fault.

Sherlock watched the tears fall on the empty grave. His grave. In that moment, in those tears, the great detective saw everything John had hidden from him. The mask fell, and Sherlock saw deep into John’s heart.

He could see the way that John saw him as another part of himself, just the way Sherlock viewed John. He could see how John loved him in a way that was separate from friends, more than family, a way that no one could ever understand. He could see how lost John had been before they found each other, the fear that John had of returning to that half-life. He could see the darkness that time had been, with no light and no reason to really live.

Sherlock gazed long into the abyss that was each of their lives without the other, and the abyss gazed long back into him, taunting him, inviting him.

Sherlock was ice and cold reasoning, and John was fire and the warmth of love. Without the balance they shared, they would destroy themselves. The detective would freeze over, return to the needle for the feeling of the cold metal sliding into his vein, hold himself away from humanity and their shallow minds.

But John, John would burn himself away. John loved more than anyone should. Without Sherlock there, John’s love would be too much. The gun that had protected Sherlock from so many could end up protecting John from Sherlock in the end, protecting him from his pain and ending his memories.

This was not supposed to happen. Sherlock had made a mistake. His death was supposed to save John, not hurt him more.

In the end, Sherlock had torn through John’s heart more surely than any sniper’s bullet ever could.

I REALLY FUCKED IT UP THIS TIME  
DIDN’T I, MY DEAR?


End file.
